Pride shouldn’t be restrained to just a month and some parades. It should be celebrated every month to drive away constraints that bind society into being narrow-minded. The whole month of June was crazy with new initiatives in solidarity with Pride. One of them was successfully achieved by Yuvaa with its Instagram campaign “ABCs of Pride”. Content creators from the LGBTQIAP+ community raise the voice of Pride with various terms and their explanations which we all should be knowledgeable about.
Now, let’s have a look at all the “ABCs of Pride” by Yuvaa!
1. A for Androgyny
‘Androgyny’ refers to the combination of feminine and masculine characteristics, which can be represented through various mediums like makeup or fashion.
2. B for Bisexual
‘Bisexual’ means to be sexually attracted to both men and women.
3. C for Coming Out
‘Coming out’ refers to the process that LGBTQ people go through as they work to accept their sexual orientation or gender identity and share it openly with other people.
4. D for Dysphoria
‘Dysphoria’ concerning gender is the state of significant distress or impairment related to a strong desire to be of another gender when the person feels the mismatch between their gender identities.
5. E for Educate
It’s important to get educated about queer history, culture, terms, and so on. Yuvaa has provided four resources such as Gaysi, Pink List India, The Queer Muslim Project, and Nazariya to get which may help you get acquainted with the queer community.
6. F for Folks, Friends
It’s time we ditch specific gender binary terms and use more inclusive and gender-neutral words to address everyone like folks, friends, partners, and pals.
7. G for Gender
‘Gender’ does not only pertains to men and women but it refers to non-binary and genderqueer people too. Also, sex and gender are not the same, and we shouldn’t confuse the terms.
8. H for Homophobia
‘Homophobia’ alludes to the negative and discriminative attitude towards people from the LGBT community, which consists of hostile behaviour and even violence sometimes.
9. I for Inclusive
Being ‘inclusive’ means to include everyone and not be limited to certain terms or people. Just by changing a logo or celebrating Pride for a month doesn’t mean you’re inclusive. Only by implementing inclusive acts, you’re worthy to be called inclusive.
10. J for June
‘June’ is the Pride month for a reason that Yuvaa has explained clearly in the reel. Furthermore, the books suggested are ‘Giovanni’s Room’ (James Baldwin), ‘The Bridge Called My Back’ (Writings by Radical Women of Color), ‘The color purple’ (Alice Walker), ‘When we were Outlaws’ (Jeanne Cordova), and ‘Neplantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color’.
11. K for Kink Shaming
Everyone has different sexual preferences, and if you’re doing it with consent then that’s totally okay. ‘Kink Shaming’ just because you don’t agree with the other person’s sexual predilections is absolutely wrong. Instead of degrading them, we should be more open-minded and normalise such erotic desires.
12. L for Lesbian
‘Lesbian’ is the proper term for female homosexuals, and they’re normal like any other person just that love women. That’s it. Don’t be a stereotypical person by referring to lesbians as a part of fetishes, it’s a gender identity itself. Also, if you consider that being lesbian means hitting on all women and hating men, then you’re wrong!
13. M for My Pronouns
There’s a whole lot of pronouns for non-binary people like “they”, “them”, “their”, and so on. We should be mindful of it because it may cause uncomfortableness if we use the wrong pronoun. And no! Non-binary pronouns are not grammatically wrong because they are being considered gender-neutral.
14. N for Non-Binary
‘Non-binary’ is the umbrella term for genderqueer people, and can also be referred to as transgender, bigender, trigender, agender, genderfluid, genderless, nongendered, genderfree, and so on.
15. O for Out of the Closet
‘Out of the closet’ is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people’s self-disclosure of their sexual orientation or their gender identity.
16. P for Polyamory
‘Polyamory’ is a type of open or non-monogamous relationship, referring to people who have multiple romantic relationships at the same time. It does not mean any type of open relationship that may include more casual sexual partners.
17. Q for Queer
‘Queer’ describes sexual and gender identities other than straight and cisgender. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people all identified as queer terms with the LGBT community.
18. R for Representation
With this reel, Yuvaa speaks about how companies demonstrate LGBTQIAP+ representation for only the month of June, then from July, everything stops. Pride shouldn’t be celebrated only for a month, and absolutely not for showing off!
19. S for Safe Spaces
To provide a ‘safe space’ for the LGBTQIAP+ community, we need to maintain their trust and remain confidential about their coming out. Also, wisely use the pronouns and remind others to do so. Share and gain knowledge from LGBT people and know about their aspects.
20. T for They/Them
‘They’ and ‘Them’ stand for the non-binary pronouns, which means that the person is neither a boy nor a girl.
21. U for Using Inclusive Language
Using inclusive language means the use of gender-neutral terms and not gender binary terms like “ladies” and “gentlemen”.
22. V for Voguing
‘Voguing’ refers to gender as a performance, and was originated from Harlem ballroom cultures, as danced by African-American and Latino gay/trans people, from the early 1960s through the 1980s.
23. W for WLW
‘WLW’ or ‘Women Loving Women’ used by the LGTBQ+ community for a relationship involving two female-presenting people.
24. X for Xe/Xem
Pronouns like “xe/xem”, “ze/zim”, and “sie/hir” are gender-neutral terms used for inclusivity.
25. Y for Your Identity is Valid
Your identity is yours to define. It’s upon you whether and when you want to come out or if you want to identify yourself with a specific term. Everyone’s journey is different so you have to decide your own path and it’s completely okay to take time, ‘cause that doesn’t change your identity’s validity.
26. Z for Gen Z
Yuvaa’s ‘Gen Z ‘and some Millennial creators from the LGBTQIAP+ community created all the content for “ABCs of Pride”. Hats off to them! If you’re wondering what Gen Z is, then let me describe it for you all. ‘Generation Z’ or ‘Gen Z’, also known as ‘zoomers’, is the demographic cohort succeeding Millennials belonging from mid-to-late 1990s as starting birth years and the early 2010s as ending birth years.
According to every English alphabet, these are the 26 reels from Yuvaa talking about Pride and its related terms and stereotypes. This was extremely needed for the netizens, and I’m glad I shared it with y’all so you can gain the necessary knowledge and implement them in your life from now on.
